Better Ch. 10

Michael's proposal was all I thought about since he gave me his parting kiss at the gate. My pragmatic side kept saying this was such a bad idea. Aside from him, I knew no one in the Bay Area, but our times together would be much more frequent and without all the disruption of taking time away from work. I could fly out to be with family during the holidays, but even these days with my siblings and their families in other parts of the country, those occasions when we all got together in one place at the same were becoming fewer and farther in between. I supposed I could fly out to Charleston, Albuquerque or Louisville just as easily. But where would he be on Valentine's Day or his birthday? With his wife, of course.

But San Francisco could eventually lead to more and more important work than what I was doing in Detroit. It wasn't as if I didn't enjoy the work I was doing, but the internal debate kept running in the back of my mind. The pros and cons came more to the forefront as I turned my phone back on at the end of the shoot I just wrapped up when I saw another text from Robert.

"Are you OK? Haven't heard from you in a while."

I wasn't ready to answer that question either.

Over the next few days, I was jammed with work and Michael kept asking if I thought any more about his idea and if I had time to get away to do some apartment hunting. All I wanted to do at the end of the day was to find my inner peace on the couch with a glass of mead and a good movie.

As was drifting in and out of scenes of "Out of Africa" a few nights after I got back from Chicago, I swore I could hear chords of "I Could Drink a Case of You" being strummed in the hallway outside of my apartment. I thought it was my half-awake mind playing tricks on me until I heard a voice that sounded like Robert's sing: "Just before our love got lost you said/'I am as constant as a northern star/And I said 'Constantly in the darkness/Where's that at?/If you want me I'll be in the bar.'"

I cracked the door open and saw him playing and singing in a voice that wasn't rough and gravely in the way it got when he tried to tear down my defenses to bed me. Instead, light and sweet. He stopped as soon as he saw me, put down his guitar, and took my face in his hands to give me a long, lush kiss that swept me away from the door and onto the couch. His touches were soft and all over me as if he was a hopeful beau who finally got the courage to touch a longtime crush. His kisses ran along my cheek, the side of my neck, and up to my ear where he whispered, "I want to make love to you like it's the first time."

I returned the purposeful stare that he cast into my eyes. I didn't know what to say. I couldn't even speak. I just returned the kiss and let him lift my old, baggy T-shirt over my head, completely forgetting that I was hardly dressed to be romanced, let alone be seen by anyone. My hand found its way up to his chest underneath his shirt and I could feel his heart pounding as his warm breath quickened from his kisses that trailed to one of my breasts. Instead of attacking my nipple with a deliberate pinch like he usually did, his lips savored it. I could feel a light tingle on my pussy, but I wasn't ready to let him go there, and he was in no hurry to do so.

In one swift swoop, he lifted me from the couch and carried me into my bedroom where we undressed each other with our eyes locked in place, not saying a word. I had no idea what he wanted to say if he could, but the message that I got as he sat me on the edge of the bed and pulled off my shorts was that this was going to be more like a slow ride on a still river instead the wild, racy romps we had been on before.

I felt as if I were floating as he laid me on my back and spread my legs open to lavish his tongue inside of me. He slipped a finger along the lower part of my walls and stroked it in and out slowly as his tongue swirled around. My sighs were barely audible, almost like a soft wind. As his finger and tongue picked up the pace, still in a gentle way, my pussy softly pulsated toward his mouth.

But for as much as he was putting me in such a blissful state, what I wanted even more was to be able to touch him and be touched all over, to which he totally obliged. Our arms and legs and hands and feet tangled everywhere as if we were discovering each other for the first time.

As if he were asking for permission, he got up, lifted my legs straight up, and said, "I have to have you."

He slid into me slowly and I felt his wanting cock pierce into me as if I were a virgin. His strokes inside of me were long and languid as if he was aware of every slick contour inside of me. My fingers didn't dig into his skin like they usually did, but my fingertips tousled through his hair and then ran up and down his arms as I wrapped my legs around him like a hug. There was no rush for me to come like a rabid animal. Instead, his protrusions from on top and then on my side produced one, long almost orgasmic buzz that kept going and going and kept him wet and well-paced for a long haul.

We must have twisted and turned with each other at least a half dozen different ways until we both knew there was no holding back. The connection between us grew more fervent and frantic as we both knew we had desires to unleash ... together. He never took his eyes off of me when he leaned over me and tried to time his climax to meet mine. In one crashing bang, I felt as if we crashed and crumbled like a landslide.

He rolled over and we both started giggling. At a point where I thought I had written him out of my life, there he was, and I couldn't have been happier to see him. I wanted to tell him, but the first thing that came out of my mouth was, "How did you get in the building?"

"Oh, shit!" he exclaimed as he jumped out of bed, threw on his shorts, and ran out the door. He came back in the room carrying a box of wine.

"I forgot I left this outside your front door," he said. "I had a full case, but I had to bribe one of your neighbors with a really nice bottle of an Australian Cabernet. I think it was the best of the bunch,"

I smiled and laughed so hard that I almost started shedding tears.

"You're crying because I gave away part of your gift?" he asked as he wiped a runaway tear out of the corner of one of my eyes.

We both cracked up hysterically.

"No," I said. "When you left me that text saying that you had a surprise for me, I thought it was something entirely different."